


Opposition

by distractionpie



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Fighting, Gen, Kink Meme, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott is being mind controlled into attacking his little brother. Neither of them enjoy the experience.</p><p>For this prompt over at the kink meme: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/3278.html?thread=3522510#t3522510<br/>Originally posted here: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6784.html?thread=16985472#t16985472</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alex

**Author's Note:**

> The two chapters are different point of view versions of the same series of events and so it will still make sense if you read Scott's section before Alex's, if you chose to read just one section, or if you jump back and forth whenever there's a scene change.

_Find Scott. Shut down the reactor. Leave._

_Find Scott. Shut down the reactor. Leave._

Alex raced down the steel corridor, resisting the urge to swear aloud. His role on this mission ought to have been a fairly simple one, with the more complex parts being left to Scott and Storm, who both had more experience. He'd been the decoy. _"Just make a nuisance of yourself then get back to the jet,"_ Scott had ordered, _"Even you can't find that too hard."_

That had been all well and good, but then Storm had radioed in asking if he'd heard from Scott because the reactor ought to have been shut down already and yet her readings said it was still running at full power.

It wasn't like Scott to not complete an assigned task, nor to ignore Storm's request for a status update. Something had to have gotten in his way. Storm's specific orders to Alex were to attempt to work out what had prevented Scott from shutting down the reactor and finish the job, but as much as it stung Alex's pride to admit it, if Scott had been unable to finish the assignment, it was unlikely he would fare any better. He was making his way towards the reactor, with shutting it down in mind, but he was also focused on scanning the corridor looking for any clues as to what had prevented Scott from managing it himself.

Even as he recognised the roar of displaced air which accompanied Scott's mutation he registered the need to drop low out of the way. It wasn't like Scott to be so trigger happy.

"Hey-," he began, and then had to lunge sideways as Scott let off his mutation again.

"WOAH! It's just me, Alex. Storm s-,"

Already unbalanced, and not expecting it, the third blast caught him right in the chest.

In past experience Scott's mutation had been proven to have very little effect on Alex and the few times that Scott had been willing to test the theory and adjust his visor to anything other than totally blocking his mutation, Alex had never suffered any sort of accidental negative consequence. Their experiments, however, had always been hampered by the fact, unwilling to indulge in needlessly risky behaviour, Scott had never turned the lenses up any higher than their least damaging setting and so the full extent of Alex's resistance to his brother's power had never been ascertained.

As he was thrown against the rough concrete walls Alex couldn't help but think that the professor would be disappointed to hear that he'd missed such an interesting new discovery. Whilst he was pretty sure there was no gaping hole in his chest, which was generally the minimum level on injury suffered by those whole went up again Scott, apparently Alex wasn't complete impervious to the effects of his brother's mutation either.

"-THE FUCK, SCOTT?!" Alex hollered as he rolled away from yet another blast, knowing that if there was anyone around to hear the sound of Scott's blasts would already have caught their attention, negating the need for quiet. He darted towards the end of the corridor, dodging another blast before he found momentary shelter around a corner. "Scott! What are you doing? You're supposed to be shutting off the reactor!"

Scott rounded the corner as he was yelling and fired another blast in his direction, knocking him to the ground.

"I know you told me to go back to the jet, but Storm sent me..." rolling across the floor away from Scott he persisted, "What's _wrong_ with you?! Scott... Cyclops?!"

Scott just turned his head and tracked Alex with the beam. Alex ground his teeth and switched direction, throwing his weight against Scott's legs and dragging his brother to the ground. He'd expected the shock of the fall to snap Scott out of it, but Cyclops just tipped his head so that the blast coming through his visor was aimed directly at Alex's head. The impact was agonising, worse than any punch and he fell away from his brother. His stomach lurched as he realised that Cyclops had switched the visor to the setting which allowed the most power to escape. It was a miracle the beams hadn't taken out the walls around them already.

Cyclops found his feet just a little quicker than Alex could and, panicking, for the first time in years Alex used his power without conscious thought. The force was enough to send the older mutant crashing across the ground and Alex's heart leapt to his throat.

_"Scott!"_

He raced towards his brother, dropping to the ground beside him, "Shit! I'm sorry. Scott... I didn't... are you okay? Damnit, I just-"

Scott blasted him down the hall then got to his feet and reached to his visor with the obvious intent of repeating the action. Alex rolled towards the wall, keeping low and trying to present as small a target as possible, his suit was clearly no match for Cyclops' raw power if the way his arm was hanging painful and limp by his side was any indicator. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself, he sprinted down the corridor, rounding two corners before yet another blast of concussive force sent his legs spinning out from under him. Cyclops approached him, not attacking, simply walking over and that, more than anything else, proved to Alex that his team leader couldn't be in control of his body. Even if Cyclops had turned on his team, or turned on Alex, his tactical skill would have remained intact and yet he currently seemed to be relying on the sheer strength of his mutation. There was no way that Alex would win by running or physical fighting, not when his ribs were burning and he could feel the slow, sticky sensation of blood trickling from his temple and with one useless arm. Cyclops was almost on top of him now. Alex supposed that this satisfied any egotistical curiosity he'd possessed about which of them would win in a straight fight. Alex's partial immunity to his commander's powers would only hold up so long if he were pinned down under a continued barrage of concussive force. They're reached the end of the corridor, Cyclops was in front of him and a flight of stairs leading down to the reactor corridor was behind him, both of the passages to the side would only continue this violent chase. He took a deep breath, searching out where he assumed his brother's eyes would be.

"Sorry," he muttered, as he let loose a single blast of power, knocking his brother away from him and, unbalanced as he was, giving off enough kickback to send himself toppling backwards down the concrete steps.

 

***** 

Alex...

His head was being crushed... why was his head being crushed? What had happened? He'd been distracting guards... no he'd done that, he'd gotten back to the jet, he's checked in with Storm... Scott hadn't... He felt a wave of nausea rise in his stomach...

"Alex...? _Alex!_ "

"Havok..." he groaned, leaning sideways and retching. The simple action sent a spike of pain through his ribs, causing him to gag again as he pushed himself upright. "Havok in the field, remember? ...or Cyclops bitches."

He staggered to his feet and rubbed futilely at his ringing ears. Everything was blurry and without his hearing as a alternative sense it was proving difficult to figure out what has happened in the time since he'd blacked out from falling down the reactor stairs.

The reactor. "Is reactor..." he stopped, shook his head, and then lurched with the motion. “Is the reactor... the reactor needs to be off..."

"Alex you need to-"

" _Havok!_ " he interrupted. "You have to call me Havok. That's the rules. Cyclopsscott he... there're rules on missions... mission... the reactor!" He stumbled sideways.

"You have a concussion. You have to stay put. I'll get the reactor."

Alex paused, letting this suggestion seep through the fog in his head. "Find Scott... Shut down the reactor... Leave... I found Scott... I found Scott but..." Scott had attacked him. Something had been wrong. It didn't... it didn't make sense. He'd attacked Scott. But that had been self defence. But he wasn't supposed to. Scott was the leader of the X-Men; he was supposed to follow Scott's orders even when he didn't like them. Scott called Alex petty and difficult when he argued with orders. What if he'd hurt Scott? Scott was supposed to be shutting down the reactor. Storm had told Alex where the reactor was, but she hadn't known about Scott, only that he'd not checked in. Something could have hurt Scott... Alex had been fighting Scott. He gagged, a horrible thought filling his mind. He'd let off an uncontrolled plasma blast at _Scott_. Something like that, it could kill people, Scott could resist his powers to some extent but if Alex could be hurt by Scott's powers then surely the opposite must be true. Scott was missing and Alex had attacked him and what if Alex had killed Scott?

"Everything's fine. We're shutting down the reactor and we're all going back to the school. C'mon Al-Havok."

Alex felt himself been dragged forward, shutting down the reactor. Yes, that was right. He stumbled in the direction he was being led, his eyes drifting closed. The reactor. That was right.

 

*****

 

Alex woke slowly, blinking his way through a haze of distant aches and drugs to consciousness. He’d been tense for only a moment before the familiar location of the Institute’s medical facility came into focus. He reached with his unbound arm and made an attempt to push himself upright however the action clearly had some effect on the various monitoring devices surrounding him as Jean Grey immediately came rushing in from her office, barking at him to lay back down. Alex had always had mixed feelings towards Jean, largely because he found her behaviour impossible to understand and because she tended to side with Scott against him in every instance of conflict, but he also knew she was a good Doctor and that the consequences of disobeying her orders in the med-bay where invariably brutal. She poked and prodded at him for a few minutes, taking readings and asking questions about how certain parts of his body felt then frowning like he’s gotten the answer wrong to almost every question she posed. Although the inspection was tiresome Alex found that he was grateful for the chance to collect his thoughts and piece together what had happened to get him there. He could remember distracting the guards at the plant, and then going after Scott when Storm had informed him of their commander’s failure to check in. Something had been wrong though, wrong enough for Scott to attack him, and to do so with enough fervour that Alex had been unable to avoid panicking and then, when he’d run out of other options, fighting back. Things got blurry after that, he’d definitely been in the reactor room at some point, had been dragged back to the jet, but he couldn’t get any sort of mental fix on the details.

“-your shoulder, so you should be careful with that arm for a few weeks and…” Jean clearly noticed the look on his face and rolled her eyes. “You didn’t get any of that did you?”

She didn’t look particularly angry so Alex decided he could probably get away with smiling sheepishly at her and getting her to repeat it later. “Sorry?” he tried, “I just… I’m trying to remember what happened, I fell down the stairs and then…”

Jean’s mouth had twisted oddly during his explanation but she didn’t comment on it. “Once the reactor was shut down Scott brought you back to the jet and he and Storm got you back here, you’ve been out of it for two d-”

“Scott!” Alex cried, although it came out as more of a hiss due to the pain in his ribs. “I fought Scott. Is he okay? Shit. Jean?”

“Scott’s fine,” Jean reassured him, “Just a few scrapes and bruises, I checked him over myself. Which reminds me, I said I’d let him know when you woke up…”

Alex nodded. “Right. Hey, while you’re at it, could you see if he wouldn’t mind coming down here, if he’s not doing anything, as I’m guessing you aren’t letting me out any time soon?” He tried to laugh the question off, but all he managed was some discomforted wheezing.

“Just stay put,” Jean ordered as she left the room, presumably to track down Scott.

Following instructions, especially those which required him to sit still and behave had never been Alex’s strong suit. Figuring that it would take Jean at least ten minutes to track down Scott and convince him to trek all the way back down to the medical bay. Spreading his right palm and pushing all of his weight down on that side he attempted to shove himself upright without aggravating his ribs, he propped himself up on his elbow, breathing through the pain as he braced himself to push the rest of the way up when Jean burst back through the door and graced him with an exasperated glare. “What part of ‘stay put’ don’t you understand?” she muttered, stalking over and pushing him back down to the pillows, “You need to rest and not aggravate your injuries. I’ll sedate you if I need to. Now I need to go and talk to the professor, and when I get back you are going to be exactly where I left you, yes?”

Slightly more intimidated than his pride would have allowed under normal circumstances Alex nodded his acknowledgement and Jean strode from the room, past where Scott was still hovering in the doorway with an aura of mixed discomfort and disapproval.

“Jean told me you managed to shut the reactor down okay,” Alex remarked, “So does that mean the plant’s out of commission now?”

Scott nodded stiffly and Alex wondered if getting Jean to drag him in was such a good idea after all. It was one thing to be able to see with his own eyes that Scott hadn’t been severely injured by Alex’s plasma blasts, but this stilted interaction was making Alex feel awkward and irrationally guilty over what had essentially been an act of self-defence.

Alex, even as a child, had never considered himself to be particularly expressive, and the bumpy journey he’d undergone in the years leading up to meeting the professor and being recruited to the institute had only encouraged his inability to properly communicate his thoughts and feelings. Given Scott’s more than occasional tendency to stoic behaviour, he suspected that, like their mutations, this aspect of their personalities was at least partially genetic – which made confrontations such as this all the more difficult.

“Jean, she said you’d got some bruising?” Alex asked awkwardly, ignoring the fact that Jean had heavily implied that Scott’s injuries had been no more than trivial.

Scott winced and all instructions for Alex to stay put immediately flew out of the window. He began to push himself back up again asking, “Where? Are you alright? How bad it is?” and pointedly ignoring that fact that he was probably making himself sound like an overwrought teenage girl by expressing his worry so openly.

“Jean told you to stay _still_!” Scott snapped, and Alex immediately dropped back against the pillows, as much out of surprise as because Scott said so. “I… the less strain you put on them, the sooner your injuries will heal,” Scott continued, in a softer tone.

“Right,” Alex acquiesced, because Scott did have a point. There had been a lot of anti-mutant activity lately and they needed to be able to use all the resources they had. “The sooner they heal, the sooner I’ll be useful again.”

There was a long pause, before Scott finally said his name in an utterly unrecognisable tone.

Alex searched out his brother’s eyes behind the visor as Scott repeated his name in the same way again. “Alex… I’m so sorry…”

Alex shook his head, wondering if his hearing had been damaged as well. “Wha-? What are you…?”

Scott looked back at him steadily and now Alex recognised that under the lines of discomfort across his brother’s face was an expression worrying close to guilt. “For what happened on the way to the reactor?” he pressed and Scott nodded.

“Clearly insufficient safet-”

“Jesus Scott!” Alex yelled, ignoring the strain the action put on his ribs. “I attacked you. I mean you… you clearly weren’t yourself back there but I knew exactly what I was doing. I could have _killed_ you!” 

Scott pulled a face and walked over, dragging a chair with him. For a second Alex thought (deep down _hoped_ ) that Scott looked like he was about to break years of macho brotherly tradition and attempt a hug, but instead he wrapped on hand around Alex’s uninjured wrist in a firm grip that was probably inescapable but not uncomfortable.

“Defending yourself and completely your assigned tasks it what I trained you for,” Scott lectured, “I was very aware of the difficulties of the situation. If it had been a training exercise I would have expected you to fight back sooner,” Alex frowned, suddenly feeling like he was being criticised for not being eager to attack his brother, but then Scott added, “You made the best decisions you could in a challenging and unprecedented field situation,” which was an impersonal and militaristic thing to say but, in Alex’s experience, the closest Scott could manage to a ‘you did good’.

They sat for several moments in a thoughtful, comfortable sort of silence before Scott opened his mouth.

“If you’re going to apologise again, shut up,” Alex ordered, “We aren’t girls. You were brainwashed and crazy and we got in a fight but now it’s over and we’re good again.”

“But…”

Alex glared. “ _No._ If this gets any mushier I’ll be forced to hug you into shutting up and if _that_ got out it’d take months to get the students back up to the appropriate levels of thinking we’re intimidating.”

Scott cocked his head, looking not a little confused by Alex’s threat, so Alex responded by yanking his wrist from Scott’s grip and grabbing his brother’s hand in his own. Scott’s eyebrows shot up about his visor.

“Not a word,” Alex hissed, letting his eyes drift shut, “I’m drugged up to the eyeballs and if you leave and I move in my sleep, Jean will find a way to make it _my_ fault, so you’re staying.”

Scott’s tried to pull his hand away, but it was little more than a token effort – Alex could still feel Scott’s reassuring grip as he drifted back into unconsciousness.


	2. Scott

It ought to have been a fairly simple task. Their intel had suggested that the both the reactor and the control room were poorly guarded and that a simple distraction to get past the gates would be sufficient to allow them to shut the whole plant down. Indeed, things had seemed to be running fairly smoothly initial, with Alex’s distraction techniques proving quick and effective and with the plant’s corridors seemingly unguarded.

A sudden stinging sensation in Scott’s neck and the blackness which had followed belied that assumption.

When he woke up he immediately reached back and pulled the tiny dart from his skin, inspecting it carefully. Something so small suggested that either its effects would be limited, or that whatever he’d just been hit with was very powerful; and Scott was experienced enough to know that in situations like this it was almost never the easy option. He reached for his communicator with the intent of warning Storm of the fact that his part of the mission had been potentially compromised but found that his movements were sluggish and his hand dropped back to his side before he could complete the action. He made another attempt to reach for his communicator but his arm seemed unwilling to respond to him. Then, to his alarm, he found himself crushing the hypodermic in his gloved palm despite having had no intention to do such a thing. He was walking then, still in the direction of the reactor, but the motions of his limbs felt wrong.

He heard a sudden sound on the corridor parallel to the one he was on, muffled footsteps, sneaky but not sneaky enough. He rounded the corner and realised that his hand had gone to his visor and he was about to let off a blast even before he consciously pinpointed the figure which had reached the junction at the same time as him. Far quicker however, did he recognise the familiar voice yelling out "Hey!"even as the figure lunged sideways to avoid a second blast.

He fought to pull his hand down as Alex found his feet and looked at Scott incredulously. "WOAH! It's just me, Alex.”

Scott’s fingers jerked against his will and Alex only managed to splutter out, “Storm s-," before he went crashing into the wall.

Alex’s angry yell of "-THE FUCK, SCOTT?!" was a reassurance to Scott of his young brother’s natural resistance to the power of Scott’s mutation, however this paled in comparison to the look of alarm on Alex’s face as he rolled away from yet another blast. Scott felt a rush of relief as Alex leapt to his feet and took off at a sprint down the corridor, clearly seeking shelter from the blasts. Scott fought to resist his body’s attempts to follow the younger mutant, realising with horror that each time the shield on his visor was being deactivated it was being done so fully, unleashing the full force of his mutation rather than just the minimum amount needed as was his usual practice. He could hear Alex yelling out a reminder of their mission to him and realised from the way the sound echoed that his younger brother was foolishly wasting this opportunity to flee. Alex was clearly trusting Scott to regain his senses at the thought of a mission, as if the act of attacking his teammate, his brother, might not have been enough for him to realise that his behaviour was wrong. The reprieve offered by the fact that whatever was controlling Scott’s body had no apparent interest in moving any faster than walking pace was limited and the moment Scott rounded the corner Alex, having wasted his chance to flee, was sent sprawling to the hard concrete floor.

"I know you told me to go back to the jet, but Storm sent me..." Alex gasped, clutching on arm across his chest as he rolled away from Scott. Scott wanted to shake his younger brother for still attempting to reason with him when the tactic was clearly _not_ working, when they got back to the institute he was going to make Alex run confrontation simulations until the younger mutant’s head spun and there was no possible way a situation like this would occur for his younger brother again. 

"What's _wrong_ with you?! Scott... Cyclops?!" the continued exposure to Scott’s powers following him across the floor as he scrambled for safety was clearly getting to Alex if he’d been reduced to actually using the field protocols he so flagrantly ignored under normal circumstances. Even the brief advantage Alex gained by throwing his weight directly into Scott's shins, a sloppy tactic, did little to change the situation, it only made it easier for Scott to take in his younger brother’s face, with panic leaking through under the pain in his eyes. Scott fired again and watched his brother’s head fly back against the concrete with a sickening crack. Scott was already standing and on the verge of another attack as Alex, blood striking a nauseating contrast with his fair hair, scrambled off of the ground. Scott couldn’t read thoughts flashing behind his brother’s eyes now, and for once Alex failed to telegraph his attack meaning Scott was caught by genuine surprise when a sudden blast of plasma sent him crashing down the corridor and away from his younger brother.

_"Scott!"_

As he felt the agony of his collision with concrete he hoped that Alex would have to good sense to flee and search for backup and medical aid but to his horror he realised the running footsteps and panting breaths were growing closer instead. He felt Alex’s hands wrap around his shoulders as he realised that foolishly, irrationally, Alex’s fear was not of him, but for him.

"Shit! I'm sorry. Scott... I didn't... are you okay? Damnit, I just-"

Scott was torn between the urge to reassure his brother that his injuries were insignificant and a fervent wish to hit him for the idiocy of approaching an attacker. Whatever was controlling him was only interested in sending the younger mutant crashing again. Clearly that got through to Alex however, because this time his attempts at running seemed sincere, arms pulled in and head down to reduce the target, sticking to walls and generally making Scott glad that at least some of his training had sunk in.

But just before the reactor stairs a hit finally landed and Alex’s legs were ripped from under him, sending him crashing face first to the ground. For several torturous moments Alex remained still where he fell, Scott screaming at his brother to move even though his mouth and vocal chords refused to obey.

Then Alex turned to face him and, with a natural talent honed by years of practise, met Scott’s gaze through the visor. His mouth moved but Scott had no time to recognise the sound or shape of the words before a second plasma blast, this one clearly aimed, pitched him down the corridor and into the abyss of unconsciousness.  
   
*****

Scott blinked back dizziness as he regained consciousness, the actions which had led him to this situation rushing back to him. They were supposed to have been disabling the reactor but he’d be drugged with something. He’d not been able to control himself, had been fighting in his head to finish the mission and yet his body had refused to comply, Storm had tried to contact him but he’d been unable to answer her. Then Alex had shown up. Scott felt a rush of feeling that he could only describe as fear as he raced back down the corridor to the spot where his little brother had blasted him. For a moment he couldn’t see Alex and he began to mentally calculate the likelihood that somebody in the facility had found him and taken him away.

Then he spotted the figure slumped at the bottom of the stairs.

Damnit Alex had never been any good at calculating his power’s recoil.

“Alex!” he yelled, hoping that the shout would be enough to trigger a response. His brother remained motionless. He raced down the stairs, cursing himself mentally for ending up so far astray of their original plan.

“Alex…?” he repeated, quieter this time, taking quick stock of his sibling’s injuries. They were as bad as he’d predicted. One arm lay at a grotesque angle, clearly broken, and blood leaked from both a wound to his brother’s temple and another on the back on his head, if the ragged edge to his breathing was anything to judge by then his ribs were at least cracked, if not broken. Scott repressed the roar of guilt in the back of his mind - that could wait until they were out of here, right now he needed to be Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, and get them both out of here. “Alex!”

Alex gave an incoherent groan in response, heaving as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Scott reached out to steady him, supporting the broken arm that Alex seemed to be ignoring. “Havok in the field, remember?” Alex said, blinking dazedly, “Or Cyclops bitches.”

Under any other circumstances Scott was sure he would have put up a mask of irritation with which to conceal grudging amusement at what Alex was saying, but as it was the declaration only served as a proof of concussion. As he made this observation he realised that Alex was trying futilely to get up and so reluctantly matched the effort, knowing that sooner or later he would need to get Alex upright anyway so as to get them out of here. 

Alex was half slumped against him, in a way that Scott knew would in the future be denied so thoroughly that even he’d being to doubt the fact of it, and muttering about the reactor.

“Alex,” he instructed, “You need to….”

" _Havok!_ " Alex snapped. "You have to…” Alex trailed off, his eyes darting around the corridor, “…call me Havok…” he continued, as if he’d never stopped. “Thassarules,” he slurred, “Cyclopsscott he... there're rules on mississions... mission... the reactor!" Alex tried to stagger away from him then, and Scott was forced to hold him in place.

“You have a concussion,” Scott explained, unsure of how much Alex was processing but determined to at least attempt to get through to him. “You have to stay put. I’ll get the reactor.” And he’d be getting it quickly too. Even with several years experience of going on actual missions he felt constantly ill-prepared to deal with injured persons, preferring to hand that sort of work off to Jean, or occasionally Storm, or really anybody better suited to such tasks than him. The fact that in this case the injured person was a teammate, was his _brother_ , babbling into his shoulder about finding and leaving and finding things only made the situation worse. There was a _reason_ he didn’t usually give Alex field assignments.

“Scott… I hurt Scott… I…” Alex made a horrible shuddering retching motion. “Storm said go after him. She didn’t mean kill him… I… I… why? Scott…”

Scott winced. He’d realised that Alex’s concussion had been impeding his ability to recognise what was going on, but he’d assumed that Alex had at least some awareness of what was happening; now he wasn’t so sure. He shifted his brother’s weight onto him more fully; wary of putting him in a fireman’s carry with his injuries, and began to drag him towards the reactor. “Everything's fine,” he insisted, which was a blatant lie, but one which was necessary if he were going to get any sort of cooperation from Alex in his current state. “We're shutting down the reactor and we're all going back to the school. C'mon Al-Havok." He’d always thought he’d be glad to have Alex complying with the rules and regulations of conduct he expected of the X-Men, but there was an inherent wrongness to this behavior that Scott knew could be attributed to either the concussion or subconscious fear after his assault.

Alex’s mumbling had stopped.

“Alex…” he prompted. “Alex?”

He could still feel the steady rise and fall of his brother’s chest against his side, there was no reason to panic. The mission hadn’t changed, it was still imperative that they shut down the reactor; he just had to do it with Alex along with him.  
He shifted Alex’s weight more firmly across his shoulder, given the apparent uninjured state of the younger mutant’s legs versus the obvious concussion and extreme likelihood of damage to his ribs dragging him seemed like a better option than attempting to carry him in such a state. They weren’t actually far from the reactor room now so he began walking, as briskly he felt he could without exacerbating the risk to Alex. With his free arm he opened a line of communication to Storm.

“Storm, it’s Cyclops,” he began. 

“Oh thank god, are you okay? You’ve been out of touch for almost 40 minutes and-.”

“I was hit with some kind of dart, the effects were reminiscent of some sort of mind control but they seem to have worn off now. Al-,” he kicked himself mentally for the slip, it was the sort of thing he regularly called the others out on and now here is was making the exact same mistake, “Havok was showing signs of concussion and has since lost consciousness, I also suspect multiple abdominal injuries and a shoulder dislocation – he’ll need immediate medical attention when we get out of here.”

Storm, showing her usual level of professionalism gave a hum on acknowledgement before asking, “Can you still get to the reactor?”

“I’m shutting the reactor down and we’re all getting out of here,” Scott confirmed, “Are you back at the jet yet?”

“On my way there, are you su-?”

“-We’ll see you there in ten.” 

*****

“Scott you can’t stay here.” There was a pause and Storm sighed. “Jean will see that you’re informed immediately if there’s any change but you need to move. Have you even slept?”

The answer was, of course, no, but Scott suspected that if he informed Storm of that she would stop trying to convince to go and get some rest and forcibly remove him from the location he’d set himself up in outside of the room where Jean was treating Alex.

“Scott. Jean has already said he’s going to be fine. Everybody else needs you now, you’re our team leader and you can’t fulfil that role from down here.

“What sort of leader am I?” Scott demanded, “If I can’t even keep from attacking my own,” _brother_ , “Teammate?”

He had always been quietly sure that, profession or not, he would see to it that anyone who harmed his brother would receive equal, if not greater, harm in turn; but now that it was him who had done the damage.

“We’re investigation the blood sample taken from you, there are clear chemical traces which sugg-”

“He’s awake.”

Scott’s head immediately snapped up, his gaze focused on Jean, who was shutting the door of the medical bay behind her.

“How is he?”

Jean shrugged. “As good as can be expected. Reasonably alert and seemingly aware of his surroundings, eager to get up and move around, which I have no doubt that he’ll be trying to do now that I’m not there to scold him. He asked to see you.”

Scott shook his head. “If he’s fine then I have…”

“No chance,” Storm cut in, “You’ve been sitting here waiting for him to wake up and now he has done your going to bail and do all of the work you’ve been neglecting while you were down here? Get in there and talk to him.”

“The team…”

“This avoidance has nothing to do with the team and everything to do with you feeling bad about what happened. _Scott,_ ” Jean’s tone was firm and unyielding. “He asked to see you.”

“We’ll finish this talk later,” Storm added, turning and walking away.

Jean led the way into the med-bay and Scott inhaled sharply. The bruising on Alex’s face was dark, with hints of swelling, and agony was written right across his features as he sat propped up on one elbow.

“What part of ‘stay put’ don’t you understand?” Jean said, with a tone of easy exasperation which Scott recognised from occasions where it had been him needing medical treatment. “You need to rest and not aggravate your injuries,” she instructed, carefully adjusting Alex’s limbs until he was laid flat against the pillows, “I’ll sedate you if I need to,” she warned, glancing pointedly over at Scott as she added, “Now I need to go and talk to the professor, and when I get back you are going to be exactly where I left you, yes?”

Scott nodded minutely as she walked past him on her way out, picking up on the fact that she was not-so-subtly charging him with ensuring Alex stayed resting while she was gone.

“Jean told me you managed to shut the reactor down okay; so does that mean the plant’s out of commission now?” Alex asked, sounding sincerely interested in the outcome of the mission. Scott, nodding confirmation, knew better. For Alex to be talking about the outcome of the mission rather than his own injuries or what went wrong was more than slightly out of character.

They stood in tense silence for several minutes while Scott searched mentally for a way of continuing this conversation but his tactical mind was failing him. It was one thing to know that he’d hurt his little brother while under the influence of mild-controlling drugs, but seeing him slumped on the sheets of a medical bay bed, hooked up to dozens of machines and looking at Scott with hesitant fear and confusion written clearly across his face was a special kind of torture.

“Jean, she said you’d got some bruising?” Alex asked, and Scott winced at the fact that Alex sounded so _concerned_ over the few mild injuries he’d given Scott in self defence, when Alex himself was in such a state. “Where? Are you alright? How bad it is?”

Alex made to push himself up of the bed again and Scott, alarmed, snapped “Jean told you to stay _still_!” and then felt a sickening rush of guilt when Alex immediately flopped back down, wide-eyed and wary looking. “I… the less strain you put on them, the sooner your injuries will heal.” 

“Right,” Alex said tersely. “The sooner they heal, the sooner I’ll be useful again.”

“ _Alex!_ ” Scott exclaimed, his stomach jolting unpleasantly at the implications of the words. Did Alex really think that Scott’s interest in his recovery stemmed only from his usefulness to the team? And if he did, how had Scott allowed such a thing to happen? “Alex…” he repeated, his brother’s confused gaze meeting his. “I’m so sorry…”

“Wha-?” Alex shook his head, “What are you…?” Realisation flashed in his eyes and he scowled. “For what happened on the way to the reactor?” Alex growled.

Scott nodded. “Clearly insufficient safet-”

“Jesus Scott!” Alex yelled, and then drew a deep hissing breath. “I attacked you. I mean you… you clearly weren’t yourself back there but I knew exactly what I was doing. I could have _killed_ you!” 

Alex’s concussed muttering flashed back through Scott’s brain then; words which had made little sense at the time but now fell together with sudden clarity. Scott strode over to his younger brother and dragged a chair over to the side of the bed, considering for a second instigating a hug for the first time in years, but then recalling Alex’s injuries and thinking better of it. Instead he sat down and wrapped one hand around Alex’s reassuringly solid wrist.

“Defending yourself and completely your assigned tasks it what I trained you for,” Scott explained through gritted teeth, “I was…” _screaming in my head_ , “very aware of the difficulties of the situation. If it had been a training exercise I would have expected you to fight back sooner.” He met Alex’s betrayed gaze and hurriedly backtracked. “You made the best decisions you could in a challenging and unprecedented field situation.”

They fell into a dragging silence, Scott still unable to shake the unease which came with his loss of control and its subsequent effects, he opened his mouth to try and confirm his explanation of how unintentional his attack had been, and to apologise _properly_ but Alex cut him off.

“If you’re going to apologise again, shut up. We aren’t girls. You were brainwashed and crazy,” Alex said, as if Scott’s lack of control excused everything which had happened, “And we got in a fight… but now it’s over and we’re good again.”

Scott attempted to object, wondering how Alex could ignore the complexities of the issue so easily but Alex cut him off with a glare.

“ _No._ If this gets any mushier I’ll be forced to hug you into shutting up,” Alex mumbled, “And if _that_ got out it’d take months to get the students back up to the appropriate levels of thinking we’re intimidating.”

Scott cocked his head, half amused and a lot uncertain as to whether or not he’d just been rather poorly threatened, as Alex tugged his wrist from Scott’s grip, Scott’s heart lurched, wondering if his brother was still angrier at him than was apparent, but before he could push the issue Alex made a startling grab at his hand. Eyes drifting shut Alex muttered, “Not a word. I’m drugged up to the eyeballs and if you leave and I move in my sleep, Jean will find a way to make it _my_ fault, so you’re staying.”

Scott fought the urge to laugh aloud at his younger brother’s unwitting descent into what could almost be considered whining and, as Alex was almost half-asleep already, carefully readjusted his grip to ensure that no amount of movement could cause his brother to slip away from him.


End file.
